Future by Design

Future by Design

2006, Technology  -   156 Comments
8.72
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Ratings: 8.72/10 from 445 users.

Future by Design shares the life and far-reaching vision of Jacque Fresco, considered by many to be a modern day Da Vinci.

Peer to Einstein and Buckminster Fuller, Jacque is a self-taught futurist who describes himself most often as a generalist or multi-disciplinarian - a student of many inter-related fields.

He is a prolific inventor, having spent his entire life (he is now 90 years old) conceiving of and devising inventions on various scales which entail the use of innovative technology.

As a futurist, Jacque is not only a conceptualist and a theoretician, but he is also an engineer and a designer.

Directed by: William Gazecki

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Xavia Hyde
Xavia Hyde
1 year ago

Excellent stuff.
And for all those saying/thinking The Venus Project and are part of the New World Order or part of the UN, you're wrong.
Fresco was about using science, technology and engineering to create better societies for all within a sustainable framework of available resources.
Nothing to do with controlling people at all. In fact he was about freedom for all people.
He wanted to create societies that don't use or 'need' politicians. He was very critical of them and governments that were more concerned about power and their own outdated ideologies and ways of running societies for their side of politics rather than improving societies for all people. Including the health and sustainability of the resources and environment that give us life and the good things we like.
Seriously, do real research and don't jump to conclusions or listen to people that say things that are not true and seem to have no idea about what they're talking about and seem to have prejudices re-enforced by conspiracy theories.
Do your own research at and their And remember, they are not the only people that think we should be using technology etc for better societies. People like Arthur C. Clarke, R. Buckminster Fuller etc also see the common sense in doing it too.

Angus
Angus
2 years ago

What an amazing man

Daniel zacha
Daniel zacha
5 years ago

To HELL with the NWO ,george sorass and the left controll freaks, im for smaller government, freedom of speech, pursuit of happiness,and fiscal responsibility in our government. Good luck and GOD BLESS Y'ALL

No NWO
No NWO
5 years ago

This video is sponsored by the UN (NWO). He is on the Venus Project which the UN is behind. The future the NWO (New World Order) is to move us off the land into big metropolis where we will be easy to manage in a surveillance state--such as using 5G, mandatory Vax, Smart meters, eating GMOs (where they control the food supply of the dangerous food), cashless society (can control you if the control your $). Look up Agenda 21 and Agenda 2030. No thanks.

Mike.M.
Mike.M.
5 years ago

Jacque is 101 years old now and still nothing seems to have changed except for the emergence of the great Elon Musk.I do hope he make Mars , a none monetary planet and a brave new world where we can all be equal in every possible way. !!

Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams
11 years ago

Can we start a new society like this now, rather than just talking about this? Nothing is going to change unless we start something new NOW

kojakos
kojakos
11 years ago

that man had one heck of a interesting life!

Jamie19786
Jamie19786
11 years ago

We will never be perfect but are we going to use are knowledge to destroy the world or make it better.This man has the best ideas I've seen,also I recently read something called Wavelution and it has great ideas to.The sad part is I belive many will die in illegal unnessasary wars before we one day do whats right for everyone and not just the corrupt 1%.

Robert159
Robert159
11 years ago

everyone has an opinion; few have an idea.

Daniel Rayson
Daniel Rayson
12 years ago

OK, bunch of misguided opinions on here. I'm here to sort a couple of them out.

1. Computers can LEARN, they are capable of "programming" themselves. This is well known. This makes them unpredictable!
2. Condoms don't work - I hate using them, and so does every other man. Population control will be by either food, bombs or snip-snip.
3. We're already very communist in our capitalist societies - We don't own our houses, we own 100 year leases, for example. The rich are capitalists, the peasants are capital.

That's all I've got time for.

Chris Johnson
Chris Johnson
12 years ago

wow. nuff said.

Winston Smith
Winston Smith
12 years ago

damn, he is inspirational ! But how do we really create a society without a monetary system? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it.. I'm just not very optimistic for it's chances of becoming a reality.

Chris Taylor
Chris Taylor
12 years ago

I wish we lived in that world. We are only limited by our imagination.

Xercès Des Stèles
Xercès Des Stèles
12 years ago

this guy is gonna get killed

Marc Legere
Marc Legere
12 years ago

Jacque seems to think we are in the transitional period between our neolithic bartering exchange system of our past ancestors, and our resource economy in the future. As if there is some "phase" we past by on our way to the future. What I find interesting though, is that those two systems (past/future by design) do not include an indirect value system like we have today, they are simply based distributing physical resources, only this time around (within about 1200 years), we now have the proper knowledge to apply it to global resource management on a live-stream, instant feedback integral system. It would be like instituting a technically driven army of robotics programmed to give people equal advantages.

It might sounds lame for all of us to have an equal chance, but I believe that will cause the bar of human potential to raise higher, and the competition will become larger in size but narrower in succession/excellence.

Robert Allen
Robert Allen
12 years ago

jaques clearly hasnt heard of the free market for the best use of resources for all peoples needs

Syed Hussain
Syed Hussain
12 years ago

Thanks Mr. Jacques Fresco, you have made best use of your life and life's of others

vasithayogi
vasithayogi
12 years ago

too many great minds like these go unheard by our governments. to make something of this magnitude happen i can only see war before the corporations let such a meaningful and peaceful existence come to be

DocLover247
DocLover247
12 years ago

This is by far the BEST doc. I have seen about Jacque Fresco and VP
WHY?
Because vs some over bearing narrator who likes to hear himself speak...
It just let's Jacque talk, explain his vision, his designs, concepts, etc
I am in awe of how in depth and dedicated this man truly is
An absolute must see Doc !!

Jacque..we hear you..loud and clear
Your words and vision will live on long after you
Thank you

Nezgodan Jako
Nezgodan Jako
12 years ago

thank you Jacque Fresco for this visions of future.

CANADA ROCKS
CANADA ROCKS
12 years ago

unfortunately if computers were in charge, they would quickly realize that man is what is wrong with the planet as a system and most likely abolish the population. Not a bad thing, just the truth.

Karenwasherefirst
Karenwasherefirst
12 years ago

This guy is stuck in the 70's and the reason the sci fi theme hasn't taken off is because it is ugly to the eye and nobody wants to live in it. Moreover, their is no prestige about it and people like to have things to aspire to. Thus, beauty holds higher esteem than function and thrift.

Gary V
Gary V
12 years ago

Jacque Fresco is without a doubt the most intelligent 94 year old on this planet.

athenascurse
athenascurse
12 years ago

Its always so much easier to dismiss and rant than to take action and change our world for the better. And people are wondering why we dont go anywhere.

Joe Reynolds
Joe Reynolds
12 years ago

Jacque Fresco is a con artist.

Adam
Adam
12 years ago

This movie is not about some futuristic utopia. IT's about a Resource Based Economy.. learn about it and then we can implement this concept. Mr. Fresco has spent his life envisioning a world that is beneficial for all life, not just a lucky few rich humans. These designs are what we can build today if we stop worrying about making money from stocks/wars and start worrying about sustaining all life.

"A higher standard of living for ALL people."

Pennyj
Pennyj
13 years ago

This documentary is frustrating to watch, but I saw it through it the hope of seeing something unsettling and inspiring. While I share the ideological vision that puts our future on a pedal stool of faultlessness, Fresco’s visualisation is fantasy.
While I am not an engineer, my understanding of the needs of the future are based around reason derived from reason.
Fresco’s understanding falls into the trap being exemplified by Apple with their smooth ‘aerodynamic’ corners outbidding the ‘archaic’ notion of clunky corners! He see's corners as the enemy of the future! Triangles are the most stable structures, not domes.
It is the most common prediction for cars that they will simply evolve into teardrop shapes. The probability is that cars will evolve in ways we cannot fathom and may possibly become redundant. Fresco’s explanations are just descriptions “…it will hover like this and be powered by propellers”. The research echoes a school science project. He says “We will have not waste, all things that used to be waste will become useful”…How exactly?
Our absolute priority will be the conservation of energy as we use all our non-renewable sources. It almost feels like cheating to talk of a perfectly balanced future (which we all anticipate as perfection) with self important revelation! Tell me how, design something that works.
While he is clearly a very clever man, I was disappointed when he claims at the beginning of the film that the film ‘Metropolis’ inspired his distaste for a machine like future. The rest of the documentary unveiled his vision as exactly that- an impersonal machine. For balance to be perfect in our society we need peaks and troughs; these don't have to be the clichéd 'global financial stability' and an 'all loving society' and 'religious communism'. Bleurgh- his values are skewed; it's uncomfortable.
Society and mankind’s happiness relies so heavily on the mystique of life and beauty found in both nature and man made wonder. Fresco’s future greedily hurries towards the conclusion of a budget sci-fi film set and echoes the film 'Equilibrium'.
The understanding of the far future must be considered laterally. His ideas are not new. Jet propulsions on an aircraft are not a true evolution.

Rant over

Jamey Weston
Jamey Weston
13 years ago

Dear CostlyMaterial-
Are you offering to pay for it? Or construct it for free? Is there anything that doesn't take money? We have plagued the world with this failing system; we've even gone in and taken over the self-sustaining socialist small villages. I live to see this project accomplished and my children have a chance at a happy and meaningful life, yet I still need money for gas to get them to school. Or should I start digging in my yard, would that please you? If you don't have the time to do what is right for the world, then please, atleast let us with enough intelligence and motivation to do it for you. What can a bank teller; waitress; casino dealer; collection specialist barter with? I am very happy that you have figured out a better way, but what about the rest of the world? I was born into this mess, and I WILL NOT leave it for my kids, if there is anything to leave them.

Nobody said quit working and starve your family...but partake as little as possible. Use what you can to do what you can. Buy solar panels, set up rain barrels, grow your own produce....you know, use your money wisely to help wean yourself off the system and dependency; you know, use your brain a little.

nik
nik
13 years ago

It's humans like this that I hope will make the meaningful changes to our world. Unfortunately the people we put in charge do not have the insight, common sense, vision or love to bring these changes forward.

Insight_World
Insight_World
13 years ago

I loved this doc. Jacque has become my idol, I could listen to him talk about this for hours. I share the same vision, but fear greatly that this will not be accomplished in my life time (and Im young).

That is thanks to the greedy government that only want more and more money and power even if it means the lives of innocent people, the suffering of their own people and destruction of our world.

In any case he is a true inspiration and his work to help create a better world for all should not be ignored but instead embraced.

hbhbhbhj
hbhbhbhj
13 years ago

"But the point I am making here is that I have stepped as far away from the worthless paper as possible."
and thats why you dont have an international movement passing on the messages that zeitgeist puts forward- unless you can swap putting up some shelves or digging someones garden for a legal teaam, budget for three films, distribution fund, promotion team etc etc.
very noble ideals -as little money as possible- total respect to you there but you cant fight a battle this big in the modern world without such a war chest- a very very necessary evil im afraid- we shall see if mr josephs and mr fresco get corrupted by it in good time but give them some credit on this as they have opened a wonderful debate-
if we only have their own weapons to fight with- then zeitgeist is the kind of high production value, anti brainwashing media slop we need- people gave up on actually edumecating themselves many moons ago....
credit?, geddit?

hbhbhbhj
hbhbhbhj
13 years ago

hearing mr varnsbissy make a childish bullying comment in such a childish, snidey and almost jealous manner reminds me that we must be patient with most americans for until they understand irony then all hope is lost.
reminds me of the mn who said to me the other day "we cant get rid of the government because very bad things will happen"
1, 2 ,3 vanslushy ....and spot the irony- sorry you probably cant count either you poor thing

Michael Varnsbury
Michael Varnsbury
13 years ago

I think this is desperately sad. It's like watching a child rambling about the ultra-futurey city he's drawn for show-and-tell.

murff68
murff68
13 years ago

could listen to Jacque for hours great stuff.

TDRPETE
TDRPETE
13 years ago

Thunder birds are go,fantastic stuff altogether,absolutley amazing.

CostlyMaterial
CostlyMaterial
13 years ago

I find it amusing that a movement that just published their newest DVD has all along talked about (including their latest) how evil the monetary system is (and I agree it is), yet even with them showing in this last movie (Moving Forward) they show people in the end of the movie throwing all of their money in piles in front of the world banks, yet...... the material on their site is $$$COSTLY$$$!
I don't get it? I have been in leader positions. And one thing that I know for a fact works, lead by example. Yet, these people that are telling everyone to toss their money aside, and to just stop the machine by refusing to work (shut down the economy) are raking in huge truckloads of this same worthless paper in the name of making a change or rid the world of it! WAIT!!!! I just figured out their tactic! Send THEM all your money and then THEY can take it off the market FOR you! Man! What a service you guys are doing in this way! Hoorah!
Before all you people that seem to be on this bus start flaming... let me just say that I don't work for money. I barter with people. No, it might not be the end answer. But the point I am making here is that I have stepped as far away from the worthless paper as possible. I am not just talking about doing it, trying to tell others to do it, and all the while setting up books, DVD's, and t-shirts, for sale about how great I am for it! lol
Peace...........

forthetimebeing
forthetimebeing
13 years ago

Best commentary dialogue I've seen anywhere is on some of the films featured on this site. Often better than the films themselves. Would love to lock some of you guys in a room until you reached a useful understanding ;-)

Should be a way to integrate/aggregate great forum/commentary writers. That might be the start of answering the 'what to do?' question.

roland gopel
roland gopel
13 years ago

i like this docco.
i've been to a few zeitgeist movement meetings and the people that attend are often misfits who just don't belong anywhere and who don't have the intellectual capacity to be an integral part of such a society, but merely users thereof. i'm sure that better education (we don't have education at this point but more correctly indoctrination) would go a long way to making such a society possible. one REALLY BIG thing that would have to be addressed is that of the bullies. i'm entirely capable of seeing another persons perspective and the merits thereof over my own perspectives if that is the case, but i know an aweful lot of people who do NOT have this capacity. and i sincerely think that is the sticking point with all these sorts of ideas. how do we protect ourselves from the bullies? i had posed this very question to a few of the other attendees to zeitgeist meetings that i had attended and the answer was "yes, we've addressed that problem" but there was NO elaboration beyond that. so what does that mean??

Simba
Simba
13 years ago

I have not read all that this thread has had posted on it, but am throwing myself into this nonetheless. I think that anyone who takes their learning process through Bohemian means, makes a goal of ensuring that he or she understands it with an engineers use of the scientific method, and then finishes by only trying to spend his or her time and energy with inventions, ideas, and brainstorming of how to save humanity, is not
a) A threat to humanity with their ideals
b) Stupid
c) establishing a new world order
d) insane

You tell me, with Peak Oil, we have agencies outside the law like NSA, CIA, NTSB, FBI, etc. able to take action and do it for 'the good of the country', the constitutional rights under threat through the Patriot Act, the worlds governments all buying their money from private banks at interest through non-government entities like The Federal Reserve, and have monopolies becoming the foundation of our public resources and mediums like News, Radio, Television, etc....

Now this all sounds science fiction, like Orwellian Fiction, but it is all established fact, feel free to look it up.

But with all this, you tell me, is his ideas mad and dangerous, or is our existing reality more mad and dangerous?

You can find out more about these topics easily just on this website alone.

Bos187
Bos187
13 years ago

@the loler

That was a long wall of text, but I made it through, and here my response.

If you are addicted to something, and are in the process of killing yourself with it, it's your friends, family and/or other people who care about you that will stop you from doing so.

I don't think the computer will decide what you can or can't eat, it will probably just recommend a list of meals that match whatever preferences you put in, or just the healthiest food it can find in it's database if you didn't put in anything.
YOU draw the line yourself with or without the help of others. You feel sick or whatever? Tell the computer(or your friends/family) and it will present you with a list of possible causes for this, for example, eating too much chocolate(or your friends/family will tell you "well, how about you slow down on those chocolate cakes").
Or you can, of course come to the conclusion yourself. "Maybe it's because of all those chocolate cakes".

"I like these white curves everywhere in the future cities they envisage, but what if I didnt?"
I recommend you to watch the documentary again. Especially the part where Jacques mentions the illuminating walls in any (pattern of )color the inhabitant desires. You don't like white? Okay, I'll make it !

"I want a toaster for my kitchen, would there only be 1 model of toaster now available to me? The ‘optimal’ toaster? What if its design, astheticly, didnt suit my tastes or my kitchen?"
-Pay attention will you? Go watch the part where Jacques presents his scale model of a bathroom. After he's done he'll show you that he has other models of those because he accounted for the fact that different people have different tastes. So no, there will not be only 1 "best model" for stuff. Everything will have multiple models/designs that can satisfy a multitude of tastes.

"If someone has an idea for how they would like a toaster to look, they can take it upon themselves and make that toaster, if people like it they buy it, it becomes a sucess. How does that work in the venus idea?"
-There won't be a need for your toaster to become a "success", because your not trying to sell it. There's no money remember? If you have an idea for a toaster to look like, you can just input it in your computer, which will then have it manufactured by a machine that can do so, and give it to you. There, you have your own toaster that looks exactly the way you want it to.
Your personal opinion is the required user input that the computer needs to give you what you want. It can't calculate what said opinion is, it can only calculate how to satisfy it after you've put it in.
This makes the next paragraph of you comment irrelevant, because there won't be "the" style of a toaster, there will be YOUR style of toaster in YOUR house :) .

"It comes back to Frescos comments mid doc, where he says language will evolve to be like engineers speaking, we wont be able to disagree because there will be a tecnicaly ‘right’ answer to everything, hence we cannot disagree."
-Once again you didn't pay attention. He said language will evolve to that of, say, engineers, in a way that's NOT SUBJECT TO INTERPRETATION. As in: we won't be able to MISUNDERSTAND each other, he never said anything about disagreeing with personal opinions expressed through such a language. This man short sighted? I beg to differ.

Taharqa (Conqueror of Egypt)
Taharqa (Conqueror of Egypt)
13 years ago

Good Documentary!!

It will take quite a rigorous flush of old ideas and thought process to accomplish Fresco's dream world. This new world will require the world to unify and be one people, one country, one nation, one religion and so on...

IMO we would need to eliminate the concept of having separate countries within a continent...
That would be a start!!!

Now that will take away from most greedy Presidents and dictators out there...LoL

In short this will bring a new world war. An Industrial Revolutionary World War.

Peace

TJ
TJ
13 years ago

Jaw-dropping. Jacques is awesome. Florescent glass? Why the hell didn't I think of that?

linda
linda
13 years ago

This reminds me of things I read about Atlantis. Maybe we are returning back to our beginning and a long forgotten past

kizzo
kizzo
13 years ago

just wait i m aching it now.......

cpt.speedo
cpt.speedo
13 years ago

@Usouffrir
I understand your concern, but it'd be pointless to return now, we're only a couple of decades(ish) away from meeting our full energy needy via solar energy(output of solar energy is doubling every ca. 2 years so even if it's at 1% now it'd mean 7 doublings away=100%=14years and let's not even mention wind wave geothermal tidal etc.)
The problem isn't in tech. but form of government and economy, The way I see it, capitalism is an infinite growth paradigm within a finite system(Terra)(don't get me wrong, communism is just as much of a failure if not more)
I'd urge you to do some research as taking my word for it is useless ultimately.
There is indeed nothing wrong with a horse and buggy, but there is when your kid dies of something as preventable as the flu(I hope i'm making sense here).

Usouffrir
Usouffrir
13 years ago

What an amzing person no duobt. I just have this wierd feeling that we should be going back rather than forward before we kill ouselves. There is nothing wrong with horse and buggy, the earth isn't going anywhere and neither is mankind. I'll shutup now..

Hesus
Hesus
13 years ago

For anyone that thinks Fresco has the answers please read the book The millennial project - colonizing the galaxy in eight easy steps by Marshall T. Savage. Despite of some may conclude from the title it is a serious work and surpasses Venus project with the first step. It is less sociologically orientated but provides solutions that could end world hunger and provide all the energy we would ever need and doing it sustaniably.

Mike Magana
Mike Magana
13 years ago

This all seems so possible if we were all to work together, but the feeling of it being far from now disgusts me. This thought of the future is what I would like to see and I know it is what everyone wants to see deep down inside them. I am sure it will not happen with in my lifetime and this saddens me. If there is a heaven I thank you jacque for opening my thoughts of how I will have it creating, because I can only see heaven as being the way we want it. I truly do Hope that this way of life will occur in time for later generations.

tocs
tocs
13 years ago

@Danby
I think maybe the world hippies imagine is a world where the baker can run his own bakery, and is not forced to work minimum wage for a multibillion doller company that has 3000 locations worldwide. Then the baker could work to improve his own LOCAL business, and have something to work for besides 10 cent raises once every 12 months.

Danby
Danby
13 years ago

Resourced based economy. This guy has his head in the clouds. I hate hippies.

Stan: So it seems like we have enough people now. When do we start taking down the corporations?

Hippie (takes a drag on his joint): Yeah man, the corporations. Right now they're raping the world for money!

Kyle: Yeah, so, where are they? Let's go get 'em.

Hippie: Right now we're proving we don't need corporations. We don't need money. This can become a commune where everyone just helps each other.

Hippie: Yeah, we'll have one guy who like, who like, makes bread. A-and one guy who like, l-looks out for other people's safety.

Stan: You mean like a baker and a cop?

Hippie: No no, can't you imagine a place where people live together and like, provide services for each other in exchange for their services?

Kyle: Yeah, it's called a town